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I'm with Lumo for gas and electric and have a smart meter with them. I pay my bills by direct debit. I recently tried to switch energy supplier to save money and was informed that the switch had been stopped due to an accumulated debt of over £500!!!

This is the second time this has happened, a while back I was with Economy Energy and when I came to switch was informed I had a debt, despite providing regular meter readings.

Just what is the point in providing an energy company with meter readings if not so that they can adjust how's much you're paying so that you pay your bills? Is this not the point of a smart meter, to make this process even easier and pain free?

Some people will say I only have myself to blame, that I should have checked how much energy I was using against how much I was paying, to ensure they were taking the correct amount, and I accept this to a point. But really I resent having to do their bloody job for them. Energy bills are high enough as it is, so they should be doing this job.

Is there anything I can do about this? Is it worth making a complaint to the ombudsmen? Any advice would be gratefully received.

I'm with Lumo for gas and electric and have a smart meter with them. I pay my bills by direct debit. I recently tried to switch energy supplier to save money and was informed that the switch had been stopped due to an accumulated debt of over £500!!!

This is the second time this has happened, a while back I was with Economy Energy and when I came to switch was informed I had a debt, despite providing regular meter readings.

Just what is the point in providing an energy company with meter readings if not so that they can adjust how's much you're paying so that you pay your bills? Is this not the point of a smart meter, to make this process even easier and pain free?

Some people will say I only have myself to blame, that I should have checked how much energy I was using against how much I was paying, to ensure they were taking the correct amount, and I accept this to a point. But really I resent having to do their bloody job for them. Energy bills are high enough as it is, so they should be doing this job.

Is there anything I can do about this? Is it worth making a complaint to the ombudsmen? Any advice would be gratefully received.

I don't see the point in a complaint because it's energy you have used so you have to pay for it eventually.

Personally i prefer to underpay on my direct debit for my energy because the money is better in my bank rather than building up a credit and it being in theirs. But i do keep an eye on my usage so i know if i'm underpaying or not.

It's a bit poor of them to allow this to happen because it opens them up to difficulties in recovering money they are owed if people refuse to pay.

But you say it has happened before so if you decided to not keep an eye on it in the future you can't have been too worried about it happening again.

You're right of course, I have been a little slack. But to be honest when it happened before I was providing meter readings myself and the company was Economy Energy which went out of business. Online I had seen they weren't the most popular company and so assumed (yes, I know, never assume anything) that they had just screwed up.

With the new company I was given a smart meter and was assured that this meant I could just sit back and do nothing, everything would be taken care of. Again, an assumption, I know. Obviously, now I will keep an eye on it going forward, but giving vent I just don't see why it is so hard to adjust the amount they take each time so that I'm paying for what I'm using. Why do I have to be in credit or debit? Why can't they just take for what I've used? It really shouldn't be that effing hard.

I don't see the point in a complaint because it's energy you have used so you have to pay for it eventually.

Personally i prefer to underpay on my direct debit for my energy because the money is better in my bank rather than building up a credit and it being in theirs. But i do keep an eye on my usage so i know if i'm underpaying or not.

It's a bit poor of them to allow this to happen because it opens them up to difficulties in recovering money they are owed if people refuse to pay.

But you say it has happened before so if you decided to not keep an eye on it in the future you can't have been too worried about it happening again.

If my experience is anything to go by then Economy Energy's metre reading system was completely broken so I wouldn't blame a customer in this respect. I don't think they were capable of registering readings correctly.

It is a problem with some energy companies. I am with Bulb and have complete control over my monthly DD amounts and how much is in my account and they don't seem to have a problem with registering metre readings correctly. I thought about getting a smart metre but heard so many bad things I decided to stick to the old fashioned method and use an excel spreadsheet and the theromostat to predict my bills.

I'm with Lumo for gas and electric and have a smart meter with them. I pay my bills by direct debit. I recently tried to switch energy supplier to save money and was informed that the switch had been stopped due to an accumulated debt of over £500!!!
. . .
Is there anything I can do about this? Is it worth making a complaint to the ombudsmen? Any advice would be gratefully received.

Well, yes you can complain to the ombudsman because, if you are paying by direct debit, a debit balance on your account is NOT a debt as defined by the suppliers Standard Licence Conditions.

You will need to start the suppliers formal complaints procedure because they have wrongly objected to your transfer.

If you are unable to settle the debt within 30 days then you will need to set up a payment plan to pay it off as soon as possible but it seems to me, from what you have said, that some of the blame. at least, lies with the supplier and the ombudsman may offer you compensation or may even compel the supplier to withdraw the objection.

Whilst I accept your sentiment in principle, it is probably representative of a significant majority of energy customers.

The energy suppliers, however, are "persuading" customers to have smart meters installed in order to meet their Ofgem targets, using empty promises (hype) of customers not needing to do anything and that their bills and DDs will be automatically correct according to their energy usage.

In my opinion, a smart meter being monitored by a dumb supplier is worse than a dumb meter. Suppliers should be held accountable.

I don’t know whether other suppliers offer this, but I am with First Utility (now Shell), with a smart meter, and was given the option to pay monthly based on actual usage, rather than a direct debit payment plan.

Whilst it does not have the “benefit” of smoothing payments over the year, I much prefer this option. I like to know exactly where I am and to pay for what I use when I use it.

Outstanding Charges
means the amount of any Charges for the Supply of Gas [Electricity] which are due to the licensee from a Domestic Customer, have been demanded of that Domestic Customer by the licensee in Writing at least 28 days previously and remain unpaid;

”

If you settle the debt within 30 days then the supplier must withdraw the objection to the transfer. Or you can wait while you go through the supplier's complaints procedure and then for the ombudsman to make a decision and then for the supplier to comply. The choice is yours. The complaint about the previous supplier can always be made after you have transferred to another supplier.

Edit
A statement of account is not a written demand for payment when paying by DD. Is it ?

Outstanding Charges
means the amount of any Charges for the Supply of Gas [Electricity] which are due to the licensee from a Domestic Customer, have been demanded of that Domestic Customer by the licensee in Writing at least 28 days previously and remain unpaid;

You should have read beyond the definitions and actually read the license conditions, Specifically, page 95;

Domestic Customer transfer blocking

14.4 The licensee may ask or allow the Relevant Gas Shipper to prevent a Proposed Supplier Transfer in relation to a Domestic Customer at a Domestic Premises at which the licensee is the Relevant Gas Supplier in any of the following circumstances:

(a) subject to paragraphs 14.5 and 14.7, if at the time the request is made Outstanding Charges are due to the licensee from that Domestic Customer;

Paragraph 14.5 relates to prepayment meters and 14.7 to disputed amounts. I don't think they are relevant.

Since condition 14.6 states that

The licensee shall ensure that Outstanding Charges of amounts equal to or less than £500 are capable of being assigned by the licensee to a new Gas Supplier in accordance with the Protocol.

and the OP has told us they had an 'accumulated debt of over £500!!!', this would appear to be a perfectly valid objection.

Any complaint would be a waste of time, and the OP should do the blinkin obvious and pay off the debt if they still want to transfer.

I'm with Lumo for gas and electric and have a smart meter with them. I pay my bills by direct debit. I recently tried to switch energy supplier to save money and was informed that the switch had been stopped due to an accumulated debt of over £500!!!

We constantly review your monthly direct debit payment amount. Whenever you come to our app, we check that what you’re paying is enough to cover what your expected annual usage is, for the next 12 months.

Well, you may see it but it's clear that you just don't understand it. I hope I can make it clearer for you.

14.4 The licensee may make a request in accordance with the Master Registration Agreement to prevent a Proposed Supplier Transfer in relation to a Domestic Customer at a Domestic Premises at which the licensee is the Relevant Electricity Supplier in any of the following circumstances:
(a) subject to paragraphs 14.5 and 14.7, if at the time the request is made Outstanding Charges are due to the licensee from that Domestic Customer;

SLC 14.4(a) and the definition of "Outstanding Charges" quoted earlier (SLC 1.2) is all the OP needs to make a complaint that the switch request was wrongly objected to.

The OP was clearly not on any repayment plan with the supplier and had no demand for payment of outstanding charges at the time of the request.

Incidentally, SLC 14.6 applies only to the transfer of debt for customers on prepayment meters which is entirely irrelevant in this case.

No, I'm afraid it is you that doesn't understand. Outstanding charges is simply the balance on the account. If the supplier has issued a bill, and Lumo do them monthly, then they have 'demanded' the charges on that bill. There is no requirement for them to specifically request repayment of any debt within any particular time frame,

The simple fact of the matter is that a supplier can object to a transfer if the balance due on the account is greater than £500, Because that's what condition 14.4 says.

Therefore my advice to the OP would be, forget about wasting your time with a complaint, send Lumo a cheque for £500 or whatever, and re-request a transfer.

The OP has a case for complaint and has nothing to lose by taking the mater to the ombudsman in due course.

I suspect your angle in this is to attempt - for reasons best known to yourself - to discourage energy customers from complaining about incompetent energy suppliers so the latter can continue taking advantage of their customers without being held accountable.

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